What is syneresis
Image: Language and Literature
In this UNPROFESOR lesson we are going to discuss the concept of syneresis. Syneresis is a concept that contains various meanings, depending on the branch of knowledge in which we are. The most frequent meaning refers to the metric, but it is not the only one. We also use the term syneresis for the matter of chemistry, although this is not the case at hand. We'll see now what is syneresis in the linguistic and literary field.
Index
- Syneresis in Linguistics
- Syneresis in accentuation
- Syneresis in literature
- Rare cases of syneresis
The syneresis in linguistics.
In linguistics, syneresis allows us to pronounce two vowels in the same syllable that should be in two different syllables. This means that the hiatus is undone by joining the vowels and that it is possible to form an artificial diphthong. In modern Spanish, syneresis is more common in colloquial language, not so in educated speech.
Likewise, there are some terms that allow a pronunciation indistinctly in hiatus and diphthong, so the concept is not always considered “incorrect”.
This phonetic change already occurs in classical Latin as, for example, in "vine", instead of "vinia", which is where the Spanish word "vineyard" comes from.
Image: Edwin Quinteros_Language Portfolio - WordPress.com
Syneresis in accentuation.
This phenomenon can cause some confusion in the graphic accentuation of the Spanish language. If a diphthong is recognized instead of a hiatus, the specific rules of accentuation will not apply, so you could be making a mistake.
It is necessary to remember that all words with hiatus formed by an unstressed open vowel + stressed closed vowel, or by a stressed closed vowel + unstressed closed vowel, must have an accent, although they do not follow the general rules of graphic accentuation. This means that, if a diphthong is recognized instead of a hiatus, no accent will be placed and an error will be made in the accentuation.
Example:
Smile: the word smile, grammatically, corresponds to the hiatus, so its hyphenation would be the following: son-re-ír. However, if it is confused with a diphthong, the separation would change and correspond to the following: son-laugh. The tilde has completely disappeared.
Syneresis in literature.
To know what syneresis is, we also have to talk about literature. In the literary field, syneresis is associated with metric of a poem. It is the literary device that allows to link the vowels of a hiatus and form, as we have already commented, an artificial diphthong by weakening the timbre of the weakest vowel in the set. This causes a syllable decrease in a verse.
It is one of the literary phenomena that must be taken into account when measuring the verses of a poem correctly. By reducing two inner vowels to a single syllable, the verse manages to diminish a syllable. It is important not to confuse syneresis with synalepha, which is the fusion between the vowel ending of a word and the beginning, also vowel, of a different one to merge into a single metric syllable.
A example of syneresis we find it in:
Humble the villain gets down
In this verse by Luis de Góngora we observe the two phenomena that we have described, both syneresis and synalepha. In the case of syneresis, the word trisyllable apea is reduced to two metric syllables and not three as it should be (two open vowels together form a hiatus). The hyphenation would look like this: a-pea instead of a-pe-a.
As for the sinalefa, here we see a double junction, the one gets off and on. In this case, the -e joins the letter -a and the ending -ea joins e-. Finally, the meter of said verse is octosyllable instead of hendecasyllable, which would be the number of syllables that the verse would contain if these literary phenomena were not applied.
In these cases, syneresis does not cause any kind of doubt, but there are other situations in which the phenomenon may be less firm when joining the vowels. An example of this is when the vowel that is not stressed is -e- due to its quality as a semi-open or semi-closed vowel.
Another example:
What mute steps you bring, oh cold death,
Well, with quiet foot you equalize everything!
In these verses by Francisco de Quevedo we can notice that the word traes is less solid when it comes to joining the two open vowels in its pronunciation.
Image: SlidePlayer
Rare cases of syneresis.
In the event that the hiatus is formed by a strong vowel + weak vowel, and that the accent falls on the weak vowel, a syneresis is not usually formed since the diphthong sounds too abrupt. However, if it is necessary to form it to square the meter of the verse, it can be done.
If you want to read more articles similar to What is Syneresis - Meaning and Examples, we recommend that you enter our category of Literary concepts.
